Irish eyes smile down on F1 in Schools Champions.

Irish eyes were smiling for Team FUGA from Coleraine Academical Institution in Northern Ireland last weekend, as they lifted the prestigious Bernie Ecclestone Trophy and were crowned F1 in Schools World Champions at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.

Eighteen-year-olds Jonathan Steen, David Anderson, Aimal Khan, Philip Taylor and Alistair Adams fought off intense competition in the global student technology challenge, beating 17 teams from Australia, Europe, Asia, America and the Middle East to clinch the title and win coveted Automotive Engineering degree scholarships at City University, London.

The five-strong team also claimed the Fastest Car award, smashing the Malaysian world record from last year set at 1.083 seconds with a 1.02 seconds run, and shared the honours for Best Engineered Car with the German effort.

Second and third places were taken by two all-girl student teams. Team Lightning from Blairgowrie High School in Scotland were runners-up, with Mercurial Aces from Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan in Malaysia in third position.

The Malaysian team also won the Team Sportsmanship award, loaning a spare set of model car wheels to the Canadian contingent who, on arriving in Australia, found that some of their luggage had been lost en route, including the all-important 'rubber' for racing.

Tanza Knights, a team from Stellenbosch High School in South Africa, took the Best Sponsorship and Marketing award, with Best Newcomer being presented to C2 from Woburn C.I. School in Canada. The Collaborative Team trophy was awarded to Team Hybrid, a joint initiative from Lochgelly High School, Scotland and East Cobb Middle School in the USA.

The third annual F1 in Schools Technology Challenge was contested in 20 countries around the world, with six million students participating in the competition. The task involves schoolchildren aged 11 to 18 using CAD/CAM software to design, build and test a model CO2-powered balsa wood Formula 1 car of the future.

The focus of the event is the time trials, with the teams racing their own car on a specially designed 20-metre track to test the speed of each model. The cars are fired down the track at a scale speed equivalent to over 220 mph. With the world record standing at just over one second, it's fast and furious action on the race track for these engineering prot?g?s.